Poles Heed Walesa Call To End Strike

WARSAW — Reluctantly heeding a call by union leader Lech Walesa, thousands of Polish workers in the Baltic port of Gdansk and the southeastern steel mill town of Stalowa Wola on Thursday halted strikes demanding restoration of the banned Solidarity trade union.

But strikers in the northwestern port of Szczecin and in the coal mining center of Jastrzebie in southern Poland failed to respond immediately to Walesa`s appeal to return to work.

The Solidarity leader called on disgruntled workers to end a 17-day wave of strikes after the government of Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski broke a nearly 7- year-old policy and met with Walesa in Warsaw Wednesday.

At the meeting, Interior Minister Gen. Czeslaw Kiszczak said authorities were prepared to discuss legalizing the union again; it was outlawed after Jaruzelski imposed martial law in December, 1981.

Strikers, apparently mistrusting the government`s pledge, were heard booing and hissing during an early morning rally at the Lenin Shipyard, where Walesa admitted he had brought home no guarantees that the Solidarity ban would be revoked.

``But we cannot achieve anything more at this time,`` Walesa was quoted as telling his co-workers.

``I assure you this decision is not cowardice but responsibility. Poland needs agreement, agreement that will produce pluralism, solidarity and housing. I am seeking agreement and I do not doubt that the authorities have embarked on the same road.``

After a vote to end the strike passed by a narrow margin, the strikers at the Lenin yard-where Solidarity was born in August, 1980-were joined by workers from three smaller shipyards in Gdansk and marched through Lenin`s main gates behind a towering cross and under a clutch of Solidarity banners.

Crowds of supporters, chanting ``Thank you, thank you,`` lined the march route, giving flowers and kisses to the tired, mostly young workers, many of whom took part in strikes last April and May that brought them no satisfaction on their demand for Solidarity.

In Stalowa Wola, a large steel and defense plant about 120 miles southeast of Warsaw, strikers finally agreed to end their walkout after receiving two appeals from Walesa and a third from the powerful Roman Catholic Bishops Conference.

The bishops, who sent a representative to Wednesday`s talks between Walesa and Kiszczak, issued a statement pledging church intervention in any cases where workers lost their jobs because of the strikes.

Despite that pledge, striking transit and port workers in Szczecin, 400 port workers in Gdansk and coal miners at the July Manifest mine in Jastrzebie were refusing to end their work stoppages until they won guarantees from management that they would not be fired for their strike activities.

Two departments of the Gdansk port, Poland`s largest, returned to work without the guarantees, the government said.

The miners in Jastrzebie, who started the latest wave of strikes because of a bitter pay dispute that quickly escalated into a demand for Solidarity`s restoration, told union advisers they wanted Walesa to appear there Friday to explain why they should give up the strike.

Solidarity adviser Bronislaw Geremek said the miners wanted to walk out of the yard with Walesa, and he predicted the remaining walkouts would be over by Friday.

Government spokesman Jerzy Urban, who during the last seven years repeatedly characterized Walesa as an enemy of Poland and a paid agent of the West, issued a somewhat conciliatory statement Friday when asked to comment on the union leader`s call for an end to the strikes.

``We appreciate every thoughtful and positive step,`` Urban said.

``The appeal for an end to the strikes is precisely such a step. Even though the strike situation is ending, such a late appeal from Lech Walesa has a moral value. Better late than never.``

Urban also reported the shooting death early Thursday of a policeman on duty inside the Stalowa Wola complex. It was the first report of a death in the latest wave of strikes.

``It is still unknown whether he was murdered or whether he committed suicide as a result of terror exerted by the strikers,`` Urban said. ``I am waiting for the results of an investigation.``

A Solidarity spokesman said the death of the officer was believed to be a suicide, with no connections to the strike.

The ending of the strikes will refocus workers` attentions on the upcoming round-table discussions among communist authorities, government supporters and opponents, and representatives of the church. The talks will seek to find a common path to get Poland out of economic and political deadlock.

Asked how long Solidarity leaders would be willing to wait for the promised talks, Geremek said the answer would depend on the government`s political will.

``It could be realized very soon,`` said Geremek, a historian who was denied his passport last spring when he wished to travel to New York to receive a honorary degree from Columbia University.

Asked to describe what Solidarity might look like a year from now, Geremek described an organization vastly different from the national grass-roots union that captivated the country in 1980-81.

Geremek said he could envision Solidarity working under the trade union statutes enacted during the martial law period in 1982. Those statutes severely limit strikes, prohibit unions from organizing on a national or regional basis and forbid competing trade unions within a single enterprise.

Walesa, Geremek said, plans to hold firm on the latter point, demanding the possibility of more than one union in any workplace. Currently, Polish workers belong only to the Opzz labor federation, a communist-led union established by the authorities after they banned Solidarity.